I wonder if there are any I/O optimizations I can make, given this configuration? Lower latency on small file read/write is more important than sustained sequential throughput (my workload is primarily web browsing and ruby development, not say gaming or video streaming/editing). With the i7, I can yield some CPU time to optimize disk ops if that's a decision point.

Maybe there are more/different luks parameters I could have used? Some dm-crypt flags I should set in the bootloader? Perhaps tweaking some kernel settings (such as filesystem caching pressure or flushing parameters)? I don't know what I don't know, so these are only vague guesses.

I doubt very much whether the bottleneck in this situation is going to be dm-crypt, with a modern processor with onboard AES instructions the overhead is negligible anyway.Your better off just doing the standard optimizations for a USB drive like disabling ext4 journaling, mounting with the noatime option, changing the scheduler, using preload, storing firefox profiles in RAM etc...

No, it didn't "fix" anything. It just shifted the brokeness one space to the right. - jasonwryanClosing -- for deletion; Banning -- for muppetry. - jasonwryan